I took a sheet of paper out of the stationery drawer and scribbled a cover sheet. “Fax for the urgent and confidential attention of DCI Prentice, Regional Crime Squad. Dear Delia: Vital evidence. Please keep safe until I can fill you in on the deep background. I’ll call you as soon as I get back. Thanks. KB.” That should do it, I thought, dialing her departmental fax machine. God knows what the duty CID would make of a hundred-page fax from Italy in the middle of the night.
By the time I’d finished, it was after two. I bundled up my photocopies, stuffed them in an envelope and tucked the lot into my bulging bag. Time to get the hell out of here, as far away as possible. I had a horrible feeling that I knew what had happened to Nicholas Turner, probably because of my bug, and I didn’t want to end up the same way. There wasn’t a trace of the guy in any of the spare bedrooms, which put paid to any comforting ideas about him having nipped into Sestri in a taxi for dinner.
I switched everything off and locked the desk drawers again. Satisfied that everything looked just as it had when I’d walked into the office, I got out, locking the door behind me. I replaced the keys in the dummy can, hoping that my memory of how the contents of the cabinet had been arranged was accurate. I trotted down the stairs and back to the kitchen. I put my ear to the cellar door. Silence. I had a momentary pang of conscience, wondering what would happen to the big man when he came round and found himself tied up in the dark for an indefinite period of time. Then I reminded myself that he was probably directly responsible for whatever had happened to Turner, and I stopped feeling guilty. Besides, judging by the pristine condition of the villa, I reckoned there must be a maid who came in every day to polish the floors, the furniture and the kitchen equipment. By the time she arrived, Gianni would probably be bellowing like a bull.
I let myself out of the french windows and stood on the patio, weighing up what to do next. I had the black box that would open the gates for me, but I didn’t know where the security system was controlled from, and the cameras would still be rolling. I wasn’t keen on finding myself the star of the Mafia equivalent of Crimewatch, so I decided to help myself to one of the vehicles, just to keep myself hidden from the all-seeing eyes by the gate. You can only do so much with computer enhancement, and I reckoned the combination of the darkness and the obscurity of being inside a car would make sure I couldn’t be identified.
A quick sortie in the garage revealed that the keys for all the vehicles were hanging on the board where Gianni had deposited his set earlier. I settled on the van, on the basis that it was the least memorable of the three. I opened the door, threw my bag on the passenger seat and climbed behind the wheel. I was just about to stick the key in the ignition when something stopped me.
I don’t believe in sixth sense or second sight or seventh sons of seventh sons. But something was making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and it wasn’t love at first sight. I took a deep breath and looked over my shoulder into the back of the van.
At once, I wished I hadn’t. There’s only one thing comes in a six-foot-long heavy-duty black bag with a zipper up the front. It didn’t take many of my detective skills to decide that I’d probably solved the mystery of Nicholas Turner’s disappearance.
I was out of the van in seconds. I stood in the garage, leaning against the wall for support, my breath coming fast, clammy sweat in my armpits. The combination of shock and exhaustion was making my limbs tremble. I don’t know how long I stood there like that, frozen in horror, incapable of movement, never mind decisive action. It’s one thing to think somebody might be dead. It’s another thing entirely to find yourself sitting in a van with their mortal remains. Especially when you’re the one who’s responsible for their present state.
It was only fear that got me moving again. Hanging round the Villa San Pietro was about as clever a move as a mouse going walkabout in a cattery. My first instinct was to dive into the Alfa and put as much distance between me and the villa as fast as I could. I was halfway across the garage when I realized that wasn’t an answer I could live with. It was my bug and my fake that had got Nicholas Turner murdered. I couldn’t just walk away and let the people who’d had him killed dispose of the body and wash their hands of the whole business. If I left him here, that’s exactly what would happen. I couldn’t just drive to the nearest police station and tell them what I knew. They might be on the villa’s payroll, for a kick off. And even if they weren’t and I did get them to believe me, I couldn’t think of a cover story that wouldn’t leave me facing charges of false imprisonment, assault, deception, breaking and entering and probably the murder of Aldo Moro.
I thought about waking Delia and bringing her up to speed so we could do it through official channels, but by the time we’d got the wheels of justice rolling, there would be no evidence of murder at the villa, the body would be miles away, and even if it did eventually turn up, there would be nothing to connect it to Gianni and his boss.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the back of the van. Before I did anything else, I needed to be sure it really was Turner in the bag. Gingerly, I reached out for the tab of the zip and pushed it away from me. It wouldn’t budge. I could feel my stomach begin to turn over as I gripped the slick rubberized bag with one hand and forced the zip down. A few inches was all I needed. Nicholas Turner’s eyes stared up at me out of a face gray in the stark fluorescent light of the garage. I gagged and whipped round just in time for the contents of my stomach to miss the van and hit the floor. I stood there, hands on my knees, throwing up till my stomach and throat were raw. Shaking and sweating, my fingers slippery on the body bag, I managed to pull up the zip. Turner’s face showed no signs of how he had met his end, but I’d have been willing to bet it hadn’t been a brain tumor.
I don’t remember how I managed it, but somehow I got back behind the wheel and drove out of the garage. All I could think of was getting out of there and putting some distance between me and the Villa San Pietro. I hurtled down the drive, punching the steering wheel in frustration as the gates took their time opening. I shot down the track so fast I nearly lost it on one of the bends. The shock of that sobered me enough to slow me down to a more reasonable speed. As I hit the main road, I realized I’d have to move the Mercedes away from Casa Nico, since Gianni knew that was where I was staying, and I couldn’t guarantee I’d get back to the car before he was released from his prison.
I left the van parked on the verge by the villa turnoff and jogged the couple of kilometers back to the pensione. There was no sign of the BMW So much for expecting Richard to see sense and come back. I drove the Merc back up the valley, past the van, looking for somewhere to stash it. About a kilometer farther on, there was a cluster of houses and a minimarket. I left the car just off the main road and half jogged, half staggered back to the van. I didn’t pass another car the whole hour.
I turned the van round and headed back toward Sestri Levante. I reckoned I needed to leave the van somewhere no one would notice if it was parked for a few days. I thought about finding some remote forest track in the mountains, but I vetoed that. It would be difficult to find the right place in the dark, it would be impossible for me to remember where it was with pinpoint accuracy, and it wouldn’t be easy for me to make my way back to the Merc. I didn’t want to leave it parked on a street, because I didn’t know how long it was going to take to get anyone to listen to my tale, and after a day or two in Italian sunshine, the van wasn’t going to smell too appetizing. What I needed, ideally, was an underground car park where no one would pay attention.